Online Gambling In Lieu Of Tax Increase?
Added: March 30, 2015
It goes without saying that nobody wants to be hit with yet another tax or fee by the government. It really does not even matter what sort of story the local politician attempts to paint for his constituents, the reality is that most everyone despises even the thought more taxes. But the will of the people be damned is what the governor of Pennsylvania seems to be saying to his residents. Sure he has come out on record that a tax increase is desperately needed to plug a hole in the state budget.
Yeah, okay whatever. But instead of trying to spread the pain of a budget deficit with more taxes on state residents how about looking for other ways to bring in revenue? One such way of adding to the state coffers is of course by bringing online casino dollars.
It turns out that at least one politician in Pennsylvania is willing to think outside the box. In this case, it is State Representative John Payne. For the record, Representative Payne is the chairman of the State House Gaming Oversight Committee. From that position, Payne can speak more authoritatively on the subject than many of his colleagues in the State House of Representatives.
Per Representative Payne, the state of Pennsylvania could begin taking in around $120Million in online casino revenue. Payne goes on to make the case that this revenue projection is actually extremely conservative. Translation: the state could and should expect even more revenue dollars to start piling up in the state coffers from online gambling.
Payne even went so far as to go on record to make his position crystal clear to everyone that would listen: “If I have a choice of an income tax increase or additional gaming revenue, I’m taking additional gaming revenue.
Now it is important to note that Representative Payne does not want online gambling to just legalized carte blanche. No, instead Payne makes the case that any new legalized online gambling operations need to be tied into land based casinos. At this point, Pennsylvania already has a number of land based casinos already set up and operating. Not only that, Pennsylvania has quite a number of Horse track racinos as well as numerous off-track wagering facilities. The point is simply that authorizing and regulating online gambling facilities is but the next step.
After all, as plainly seen by the Governor’s recent actions, the state can certainly use a revenue boost. Perhaps Representative Payne will be the one to push this one through.